Authors-1 Have Read: Some Literary Ramblings

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 273, 13 August 1932, Page 18

Authors-1 Have Read: Some Literary Ramblings

(By

P.E.M.)

GENE STRATTON. PORTER If you.love the.birds, the trees and the flowers—and I am sure yon do—you will be delighted with the books of Gene Stratton Porter, a charming American lady, who is at heart a lover of nature, and has a rare gift in conveying her understanding of wild things to. her . readers. Hours of .sheer delight await, the young reader who has yet to read these wonderful stories of the woods and fields.

Little Genh Stratton, who was the youngest of a family of twelve, lived on the Hopewell Farm, Wabash County, Indiana, .U.S.A.. When only a few years old,- her mother, who- had once nursed three of her children through typhoid fever, contracted it herself. The youngest, child, therefore, was allowed to follow her own impulse and escape the training given to her sisters. ’ ’ ' 4 ' . ' She followed her brothers outdoors and ’ communicated frequently . with Nature until she began to treat birds, insects and plants as she would her sisters. She would climb up a tree in which’she knew a nest could be found, laden with crumbs and worms to feed the young. The birds were not frightened at little Gene Stratton; they knew her, and they loved her as much as she loved them. ;• • All this life in close relation ■ to Nature became a; thing of memory just before her mother’s death. Then her people left the farm and went,to the city of Wabash, that her-mother might have constant medical treatment. She was dying. She had helped'her husband in the fields, she had helped to make their farm one of the most prosperous in the neighbourhood; she had worked’her own little experiments in botany, but all this life was growing further and further away until she expired into the world of shadows. Gene Stratton, much to her disgust, was then taken from outdoor life, her feet shod, her body restricted by the burden of school clothes, and her active legs stilled to a shuffle beneath the desks of a-close school-room. The first literary work of hers was cleverly put before the public. She was assigned to write a composition on “A Mathematical Saw.”. She. rebelled and retold.the story of the Picclola. and in’’ tear she-read it aloud to the class. At the end’ of the first, chapter, her teacher called the school superintendent to hear t he ■ 10-page masterpiece. Mrs. Porter, describing the incident In later years, said: “One instant the room was in laughter, the next the bovs bowed their heads, and the girls who had forgotten their handkerchiefs cried hr their-aprons. Never again was a subject forced. upon me.” - Gene Stratton was married In ISB6. at the age of IS, to Charles Darwin Porter. The new home was a cabin of 14 rooms standing on about 15 acres near

the Limberlost swamp.’. The familiar address runs: “Limberlost Cabin, Rome City,' Indiana.” It was a picturesque cabin with ample garden and woods in which- Mrs. Porter’s little daughter could roam and acquire the same love for nature as her mother had. Although she had more work to do, Mrs. Porter still had time to look after her birds, books, and photography. Sue was for two years the editor of the “Photographic Times.” In 1904 she wrote “Freckles. This is a well-known book, beloved by young people. The idea of the book came one day wlien Mrs. Porter was leaving the swamp. A big feather with a shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and swirling earthward, and fell In her path. It was an eagle's feather, but. although she Instantly looked aloft, her well-trained eyes could not locate the bird. She has always regretted that to her storv the title “Freckles” was given not “The Fallen Feather”—that tangible thing, drifting from nowhere, just as Freckles came in her story. Gene Stratton Porter wrote many charming books, ajl of which have a particular charm for lovers of nature. Those I have enjoyed reading most are “At the Foot of the Rainbow,” “Music of the Wild.” “The Harvester,” “Laddie," “A Daughter of the Land,’ and “Michael O’Halloran.” But if you have'not already made this authors acquaintance, read “Freckles” first.